Protesters target the ‘alt-right’ figurehead Jason Kessler in Charlottesville. Kessler was an organizer of the ‘Unite the Right’ rally.
Photograph: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

The “Unite the Right” torchlight march and rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, last weekend descended into violent clashes with counter-protesters, as far-right groups chanted racist slogans and – many kitted out with shields, sticks, helmets and pepper spray – performed the Hitler salute and waved neo-Nazi flags. The events shone a spotlight on a number of disparate groups and individuals who have been emboldened since Donald Trump’s populist rightwing election victory.

The Southern Poverty Law Center civil rights organisation has identified the leading rightwing extremist organizations whose members and cheerleaders attended Charlottesville and who could be spotted at a growing number of such events around the US, as they seek to expand their reach, raise their profiles and coalesce around an agenda of militant white glorification.

Charlottesville reveals an emboldened far right that can no longer be ignored

Read more

Neo-Nazis

Neo-Nazis are principally members of the National Socialist Movement (NSM), which grew out of the original American Nazi party, founded in 1959. The NSM specifically espouses the policies of Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich and is believed to be the largest and most widespread neo-Nazi organization in the country, with chapters in 40 states. The group lionizes the Third Reich and hopes for its reincarnation in America as an ideology and political force. The NSM had traditionally sported swastika iconography on Nazi-style uniforms, armbands and flags but last year decided to modify its garb and accessories, removing the swastika in a self-declared desire for a more mainstream appeal. The NSM is led by Jeff Schoep, 43, who took charge in 1994. The group allows cross-membership with other groups. It is close to the Ku Klux Klan. Schoep and Matthew Heimbach, chairman of the Traditionalist Workers party, have formed the Nationalist Front, a white supremacist coalition aimed at bringing more unity to the far right.

Ku Klux Klan

The oldest and most infamous operational American hate group has racism and violence as its existential core. The Klan dates back to the Reconstruction period in the US, which followed the end of the civil war in 1865, after the defeat of the southern states and the end of legal slavery. Its members are instantly recognizable, dressed in white sheet-like cloaks or robes and high, pointed hoods, which may cover the face. The group is well known for the practice of setting fire to giant Christian crosses at gatherings, meant as an inspiration to members and intimidation to those it hates. The Klan’s prime enemy was originally the freed black slaves and it became notorious for routinely murdering and raping African Americans. Its targets evolved to include Jews, immigrants, gay people and, for a period, Catholics. It was particularly prominent in the 1920s and 1960s and has been recruiting and trying to expand in the last five years, though its demographic skews middle-aged or older. Its presence and activities are still more shadowy then some others on the right. One of its most visible cheerleaders is an ex-leader, David Duke, whose profile has experienced a resurgence since he endorsed Trump for president. Thomas Robb is an Arkansas-based Christian Identity pastor and head of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, which he took over in the 1980s after the departure of David Duke.

Internet provocateurs and charismatics

The Daily Stormer website has become the pre-eminent online cheerleader of far-right extremism in the US in the past three to four years, although it is currently under threat after being tossed from mainstream web hosting and registration by GoDaddy and Google following the events in Charlottesville. It has retreated to the unofficial, so-called dark web. Immediately after the election victory of Trump in November 2016, its founder, the neo-Nazi and internet troll Andrew Anglin, claimed the result was a defeat for “the agenda of multiculturalism” in America and encouraged supporters to yell at Muslim women in the street and make them feel “unwanted ... afraid”. The Stormer Troll Army consists of supporters whose mission is to perpetrate harassment against minorities and anti-Nazi advocates. Leading personalities of the self-styled “alt-right”, who primarily use blogs and social media to disseminate aggressive, often snarky and obscene, racist, misogynistic, anti-semitic far-right hate speech and conspiracy theories include Mike Peinovich (known as Mike Enoch), Tim “Baked Alaska” Gionet and Jason Kessler, the instigator of the Unite the Right march and rally in Charlottesville.

White nationalists

This group significantly overlaps with other categories, especially neo-Nazis, but is less focused on obsessively channeling the Third Reich. White nationalists are characterized primarily these days by a younger demographic, with many leaders in their 20s intent on bullying their way into the maintsream media spotlight. They specialize in neat, businesslike attire and savvy messages tailored for popular appeal, including talk of white Americans feeling under threat and neglected. The group includes disparate smaller groups espousing ideologies such as the natural superiority of whites, white separatism, and a desire to rid America of all immigrants of color and halt further immigration. The most prominent personality in the modern white nationalist movement is Richard Spencer, head of a body he describes as an independent research and education organization “dedicated to the heritage, identity and future of people of European descent in the United States and around the world”. He claims to have coined the term “alt-right” and is a suit-and-tie wearer who also likes to roll out the straight-armed Nazi salute and has led chants of “Hail Trump” at meetings and rallies. But many in this new generation take their cues from leading voices of the recent past, such as white supremacist and pseudo-intellectual Jared Taylor, who created the racist magazine American Renaissance in the 1990s, although he claims not to be an anti-semite. Groups in the modern White nationalist category also include Identitarians, especially the white-polo-shirt and khaki-trouser-wearing Identity Evropa, led by Californian Nathan Damigo; and Vanguard America, with whose ranks James Fields was seen standing in Charlottesville prior to driving his car into counter-protesters, leading to the death of Heather Heyer, a murder charge for him and a federal civil rights investigation. Matthew Heimbach’s Traditionalist Workers party also falls under the white nationalist umbrella.

Neo-Confederates

Neo-Confederates are unsurprisingly rooted in southern states and dominated by groups based there, some with giveaway names such as Dixie Republic and FreeMississippi. The leading group in this category, heavily represented in Charlottesville at the weekend, is the League of the South, which argues, with increasingly militant tones and tactics, for a modern-day secession from the United States. The league comes across as more old-school than the younger, more internet- and social-media-savvy far-right groups, yet still has wide appeal. Its ageing president, Michael Hill, finishes speeches aimed at recruiting members into a paramilitary arm called the Southern Defense Force with phrases like: “Are you ready to be a man amongst men?” This was a battle cry of pro-colonial white nationalist “Rhodesians” battling in the seventies against Zimbabwean independence, yet was known to have inspired the young white supremacist and mass murderer Dylann Roof. Hill equates the rise of multiculturalism in the US with “racial genocide” against whites. A similar group is the Council of Conservative Citizens, whose most prominent member, Alabaman Brad Griffin, is a prolific and passionate blogger on topics with primarily racist and southern nationalist messages.

Anti-government “patriot” movements

This category is dominated by militias across a wide spectrum and grew significantly during the Obama administration. At one end are ultra-fringe, outlaw groups preparing for armed resistance when their conspiracy theories come to fruition (such as the United Nations imposing its supposed “Agenda 21” global plan to take away world citizens’ property rights). At the other are unofficial weekend warriors willing to take up arms unilaterally to defend the US constitution but primarily involved in displaying paramilitary paraphernalia in public in defense of hate speech and gun rights and as a deterrent to liberal activism. One of the largest and most radical groups is the Oath Keepers, founded in 2009 in Nevada. Its leader, Montana-based Elmer Stewart Rhodes, nicknamed Hillary Clinton “Herr Hitlery” and predicted that if she became president, she would declare all militias “enemy combatants” – ie domestic terrorists. Until he died in 2016, another champion of the radical militia movement was Michael Brian Vanderboegh, who created the Three Percenters in 2009, a group that vows to resist universal gun control in the US with force. Members of the cattle rancher Bundy family were backed by militia members pushing back against federal government “overreach” over public lands when they forced an armed standoff against federal agents in Oregon in 2016. More mainstream militias, such as the Pennsylvania Light Foot Militia, which declared itself a neutral, unofficial peacekeeping force in Charlottesville last Saturday, have refined their views to declare they are only against “corrupt government”. This allows them and other militant patriots comfortably to champion Trump.

Proud Boys

One of the newest groups spawned on the extreme right, the Proud Boys was formed in 2016 as a young, anti-Muslim, anti-liberal, pro-Trump men’s club promoting racist and sexist public speaking but reportedly rejecting outright militant white supremacy, leading to it being dubbed “alt-lite”. It has attempted to distance itself from the “alt-right”, although members often attend the same events as white nationalist groups, and the Unite the Right organizer Jason Kessler has been cited as a Proud Boy. The Proud Boys group was created by the Vice magazine co-founder Gavin McInnes (who is no longer part of Vice), who has referred on Twitter to immigration and white women seeking abortions collectively as threatening “white genocide”, and refers to himself as a “western chauvinist”. McInnes has been cited as an inspiration by Matthew Heimbach and Brad Griffin. Meanwhile, in 2017, a so-called street-fighting organization called the Fraternal Order of Alt-Knights (Foak) was formed by the California reactionary Kyle Chapman, who called the outfit a partner and “tactical defensive arm” of the Proud Boys. A core mission is to attend white nationalist, radical patriot or pro-Trump speaking events or rallies, sometimes carrying clubs and shields, and battling anti-fascist activists trying to protest or prevent racist speeches.

“We don’t fear the fight, we are the fight,” Chapman proclaimed in a post announcing the formation of Foak.